1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to semiconductor integrated circuits, and more particularly to an on-chip resistance measurement circuit and a resistive memory device including the on-chip resistance measurement circuit for measuring resistance distribution of resistive memory cells.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Due to demand for high memory capacity, high operation speed and low power consumption of memory devices, resistive memory devices of various types have been developed in an attempt to combine the high integration rate and high speed of DRAM devices and the non-volatility of flash memory devices in a single memory device. Materials used in resistive memory devices have a resistance that is variable depending on magnitude and/or direction of applied voltage and/or current. Moreover, the resistance of the material can be maintained (that is, non-volatility) even though the applied voltage and/or current is removed and thus a refresh operation may not be required.
Memory cells in a resistive memory device have a resistance distribution depending on operation conditions such as a voltage, a temperature, variations of manufacturing process, etc. and the performance of the resistive memory device may depend on the characteristics of the resistance distribution. Exact and rapid measurement of the resistance distribution is typically used to verify and test the performance of the resistive memory device.